April 01, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 23, 1429

SRINAGAR, March 31: Freedom struggle leaders in occupied Kashmir on Monday called upon the Amnesty International to ascertain the identities of bodies in nearly 1,000 unmarked graves found in the region.

The Association of Parents of Disappeared People (APDP) says around 8,000 people have vanished during the nearly two-decade-old movement against New Delhi’s occupation.

The group said on Friday it had discovered close to 1,000 ‘nameless graves’ in 18 villages in the district of Uri.

“It is a matter of grave concern for us. We want to know who are buried in these graves,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a leading cleric and head of the moderate wing of the region’s main liberation alliance.“We urge Amnesty International and other rights groups to identify the people buried in these graves,” Farooq said.

APDP released a 23-page report, ‘Facts Under Ground,’ on Friday that lists the nameless graves in the Muslim-majority region where the freedom struggle has been going on since 1989.

“There are many more graves where the buried people have been claimed as foreign militants,” said APHC spokesman Pervez Imroz.

“During our fact-finding (survey), villagers reported most of the bodies were in fact of Kashmiris and not foreign militants as claimed by the security forces,” said Imroz.

A police report said 331 people died in custody and 111 had disappeared after being arrested since the freedom movement started.Local human rights groups, however, say 8,000 people are missing, most after being arrested by Indian forces.

Indian officials say many of the missing had crossed over to Pakistan to join freedom fighters and the Indian army rejected on Friday claims that the graves contained the bodies of anyone besides militants.

“Those who have been buried in these villages were killed in well established encounters over the past two decades,” army spokesman Lt-Col Anil Kumar Mathur said.—AFP